


breather

by EllaYuki



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: 100 Year Quests (Fairy Tail), Canon Compliant, F/M, Post Chapter 23, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 11:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18548941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllaYuki/pseuds/EllaYuki
Summary: As they leave the town of Elmina behind, Natsu and Lucy talk and clarify a couple of things on the train ride to the next stop in their journey.





	breather

“What _did_ happen?”

Lucy looks down, and meets Natsu’s gaze. His head is pillowed on her lap, body laid out on the bench of their corner of the train car they’re on. His face is still a bit on the greenish side, but she doesn’t think he’s going to hurl again anytime soon. He looks serious, for once, and pensive.

“Hmm?” she asks, carding her hand through his bangs. “You mean when you ate those flames?”

Natsu nods, slightly, bites his lip and looks to the side for a brief moment, before he looks at her again. “Happy told me I said some weird stuff, but he wouldn’t tell me what.” He crosses his arms over his chest, awkwardly shrugging the shoulder not digging into her thigh. He looks like he regrets the movement a second later, though. “I figured you would.”

Lucy thinks about it for a long moment, taking in Natsu’s stiff posture and the stubborn set of his jaw. She sighs; ruffles his hair. “It was a bit scary, I’ll admit,” she says, looking out the window of the train car they’re in. All she can see is green grass and blue skies rushing past. Then, realizing what she’s said, hurries to add, looking back down at him. “I wasn’t scared of you!” And, at his wide-eyed look, she says, softer, pulling on a lock of his hair. “Never of you, you idiot. But those flames…” She looks up for a moment, takes in her other friends’ sleeping faces. She looks back down. “Those were nothing like your normal flames, and they were terrifying. And for a moment…”

Now she’s the one to bite her lip. She remembers the glimpse she got of the look on his face. The barely human gaze, the gold surrounding vertical pupils, the crimson scales, the snarl twisting his lips. And the voice. Oh, it still sends chills down her spine.

“For a moment, it was like you weren’t you anymore.”

For a while, there’s silence, thoughtful and heavy. “You said you’d burn every trace of the Water God Dragon’s body until there wasn’t anything left of him anymore,” she finally answers his earlier question. _You were going berserk_ , she doesn’t say, not out loud.

_I’m scared I might lose you to those flames one day_ , she also keeps to herself. It’s a terrifying thought.  

The hand she doesn’t use to basically pet Natsu’s hair, Lucy brings to her chest, just under her collarbone. A tiny, microscopic part of her wishes Wendy hadn’t healed all the scale-patterned burn marks. She shuts that part down, locks it away, even as she feels her cheeks warming up. _Stop being an idiot, Lucy,_ she admonishes herself.

“Thanks,” Natsu says, pulling her out of her head. Lucy looks at him again, finds that she’s had unknowingly brushed all the hair from his forehead. She pulls on a few strands again, just because she can.

“There’s nothing to thank me for,” she says to him, and means it. It hadn’t been an effort to pull him back from the brink. It wasn’t the first time, and she knows that, unfortunately, it probably will not be the last, not with the way their life is. Hell, she hadn’t really even thought much about it. She’d heard his words, heard his roar, and her body moved on its own just as her mind was flooded with only the thought of stopping him. 

Natsu gazes up at her, the kind of look that usually has her squirming with how penetrating it is, except this time she meets it head-on, only feeling fondness and relief.

“Come on,” she says, and flicks his nose. “Get some sleep. You should get some rest. We both do.”

Natsu continues to just look at her a few moments longer, before he shuffles around on the bench, making himself comfortable, and buries his face into Lucy’s belly. He inhales deeply, and then lets out a long breath.

Lucy threads her fingers through his hair again, but just lets them rest there, cradling the back of his head, holding it close to her.

She looks out the window, resting her head against the cool glass.

When she closes her eyes and falls asleep, her dreams are filled with fire and red skies and a dreadful, booming roar.

 


End file.
